behind me like a cape when I walked—or stalked, as Linus instructed. The top ended an inch above my belly button offering a peek of stomach and pale, New York-winter skin. It had cap sleeves and zero cleavage. But the way it hugged my breasts was almost sinful. There was a silk tie at the back of my top that kept it cinched in under my breasts and when I moved, it felt like a caress.
And it wasn’t just the clothes. Or the sleek, smoky eyes. Or the bold lips and sex-tousled hair. I was remembering who I was underneath it all. Beneath the stress and the broken fingernails, the cheap clothes, and the just starting to catch up on sleep again. I was Ally Morales, and I had a value that went way deeper than what one man accepted or rejected.
“Well, hot damn,” Linus said.
Hot damn indeed. I nodded at my reflection.
“Where in the hell did you find this dress?” I asked.
He plucked a stray piece of fuzz off the cap sleeve. “It was a leftover from a shoot last year. We didn’t end up using it. None of the models could be pinned into it since it was made for someone with…” He gestured at my boobs. The dress had been made for them. “It’s Christian’s. He’ll like seeing you in it tonight.”
I thought I detected a hint of mischief in his tone.
“What are you up to, Linus?”
He spread his hands, the picture of innocence except for the smirk that played over his lips. “Your fairy godfather doesn’t need to have an ulterior motive.”
“Now I’m very suspicious.”
“Just go and don’t fall on your face,” he instructed.
“Aren’t you going?” I asked.
“Like this?” he scoffed, waving a hand over his impeccable black-on-black suit.
“Uh. Yeah.”
“Can’t. Kids have a school thing.”
“Kids? You have children?”
“Why is everyone so surprised by that?”
He pulled out his phone and gave me a five-minute slideshow of little Jasper, Adelaide, and Jean-Charles.
I was still reeling by the time I got downstairs. One thing that I really liked about this job was the car service. It wasn’t Nelson but a female driver who opened the back door for me. And the backseat was occupied by a very stylish Dalessandra.
“I thought we’d ride together and we could chat,” she said, patting the seat.
There are moments in everyone’s life when they stop, breathe, and wonder who the hell’s life they’re actually living. Cruising through Midtown in a limo with one of the fashion industry’s most influential icons next to me in a design that had obviously been made just for her was one of those moments.
“You look lovely,” she said. “That dress.”
“Me? Look at your dress.” Even seated and in the dim interior light, she stunned. The gown was layers and layers of silver and gray and cream arranged like swan feathers. Slouchy suede boots that I would have sold an ovary for peeked out from the hem.
“Perks of the job,” she said, waving away the compliment. “Now, how are things?”
“Things are fine,” I fibbed. My neck started to itch.
“Fine? Everyone you’ve met. Everyone you’ve talked to on staff. They’re all fine?”
I was not mentally prepared for this conversation. No, what I’d spent all day girding my loins for was seeing Dominic outside work.
I would not inappropriately touch my boss tonight.
I would not inappropriately touch my boss tonight.
I’d repeated the mantra all damn day.
The past two weeks had been an exquisite kind of torture. Every morning when he arrived and walked past my desk, I smelled that body wash of his and was immediately transported back to his home, his shower, the reason I’d been in his shower.
And then I had to remind myself why I was barely speaking to the man.
“What about Dominic?” Dalessandra asked, pursing her red, red lips together.
“What about him?” I hedged.
She slid a knowing gaze to me. “You two are close.”
I shook my head vehemently enough to have a hairpin fly out and land in my lap. “We’re really not.”
“You are,” she insisted. “Is he happy? Does he hate me for what I’ve asked of him?”
I cleared my throat and felt disloyal to a man who hadn’t officially earned my loyalty. “I don’t think anyone would say that Dominic is a happy man,” I ventured.
“But you see beneath all that bluster.” Dalessandra made the statement like it was a fact. “Is he really unhappy? Did I ask too much of him in stepping in to clean up his father’s mess?”
I considered gnawing my lipstick off but